Mark Zandi is the Chief Economist at Moodys.com and one of the headline presenters at the VCU Real Estate Trends conference. I wrote about him last October. Speaking at the Reuter’s Housing Summit in NYC this week, he gets down to brass tacks regarding forclosures and the recession.
“Three months ago, I expected the economy to skirt a recession. Now, I expect it to suffer a recession (in the) first half of 2008,” he said.
Zandi expects the Federal Reserve to slash the federal funds rate, currently at 3 percent, by another percentage point this year.
He expects home sales to hit bottom this spring, housing starts to reach a nadir this summer, and house prices to trough in the spring of 2009.
